Paris summit on debt and climate: France 24 speaks to World Trade Organization director
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Transcript
00:00 France 24's Catherine Norris-Trent has been covering the summit for us in a short while ago.
00:04 She spoke to the Director General of the World Trade Organization. Here's Catherine.
00:09 As this summit here in Paris, this major summit looking for a new global
00:15 financing pack wraps up, I am joined by the Director General of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
00:25 Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Ngozi.
00:27 First of all, I'd like to get your reaction, please, to this summit. In concrete terms, has enough been achieved, do you think?
00:35 I really do think so. Actually, maybe more has been achieved than I expected.
00:41 First of all, there's a consensus
00:44 on what is needed to be done.
00:48 Everyone agrees that
00:51 poverty,
00:52 climate, food security,
00:54 inequality, all these things are part of the same problem. And there's a consensus
00:59 they need to be tackled. And the financing to tackle it must be put on the table.
01:03 So the South,
01:05 South, meaning
01:08 developing country leaders, have also been very vocal at this conference, more than I've ever heard, in
01:14 articulating that, look, they do not want to be "helped".
01:19 They want to be part of the contribution and the discussion. And
01:24 they would want investment. And there are investable
01:27 projects on the climate side that they would like to see supported.
01:32 But they're skeptical, you know, and they want real action after this.
01:36 And from your point of view, you're the head of the World Trade Organization,
01:40 do you feel enough has been said about trade? We've heard about debt reduction, we've heard about climate issues, global health issues,
01:46 we haven't heard a great deal about trade. And yet it can,
01:49 according to your organization, help to pull people out of poverty a great deal.
01:53 Absolutely. That was the point I made in my panel this morning, that missing from the conversation,
02:01 most of the conversation, is trade. All of the financing can come.
02:06 But if trade policies are not right, you're not going to get the impact you want.
02:11 You're not going to get to net zero by 2050. Trade is part of the solution.
02:16 You saw what happened during the pandemic, when people had financing for vaccines,
02:21 but then some countries put export restrictions. And even with all the money, you couldn't get the vaccines to where they were needed.
02:27 Now, what I'm saying is, we need to be careful about the trade policies. Trade can help
02:33 make sure that we get to net zero by making technologies cheaper, helping to disseminate those technologies.
02:41 Trade, we can also have an environmental trade agreement that lowers tariffs on
02:48 renewables and other environmental goods.
02:50 We can also look at subsidies. At the WTO, we are actually looking at
02:57 agricultural subsidies. There are over 600 billion dollars in agricultural subsidies, trade-distorting
03:05 agricultural subsidies that could be repurposed
03:07 to finance for climate finance.
03:11 So why don't we look at that? There are over 500 billion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies.
03:17 And we have another group of members looking at this. That could also be repurposed for climate finance.
03:22 We're looking for 2.4 trillion. Already, if we did something with those two numbers, we would be over 1 trillion that could be
03:30 redirected to climate finance. So at the WTO, we feel trade is really a part of the solution.
03:37 And how worried are you about a perceived shift towards more protectionism in the West post-COVID?
03:44 Things like the USA with its IRA and people looking, Western countries looking to boost their own economies.
03:51 Does that concern you at the moment?
03:53 Absolutely. I think the shift towards protectionism is worrying. I think that we have
04:00 populist movements and tendencies because people have been left out of the first phase of
04:09 globalization. So you have poor people in rich countries who didn't benefit and this leads to asking to protectionist sentiments.
04:16 You have poor countries that were left behind. And we're saying now,
04:20 instead of thinking of more protectionism or
04:23 fragmentation or decoupling, it is time to reimagine globalization and to think about
04:30 using our desire to build resilience in supply chains in the world to bring in those people
04:39 and those countries who were left out. So in a rich country, if there is a region that is poor and the people there have not benefited,
04:45 why don't you try to incentivize supply chains to go there?
04:49 Why not for them to go to poorer countries that have the right business environment?
04:54 I mean, Morocco is doing well with aviation supply chains. Senegal,
04:59 Kandusa, Kenya, Nigeria, they have countries that you can go to.
05:05 Bangladesh, Brazil.
05:08 So this, we are calling it
05:10 reglobalization. That is a better way to go than to be protectionist and to fragment, than to think of
05:18 decoupling. It goes along with what we're saying when they talk about this de-risking.
05:22 People ask me, what does this mean? That's what it means.
05:25 Let's build better resilience by diversifying supply chains.
05:29 And I must say that Chancellor Schultz nailed it during this summit.
05:35 When he said, look, let us diversify fertilizer supply chains. That way we build resilience
05:41 for food security.
05:44 That was in reference to talking about the war in Ukraine, of course.
05:48 Lastly, I just want to ask you about the proposed levy on maritime traffic, on shipping. Now that wouldn't be
05:54 monitored or installed by your organization, but it could have a big impact, couldn't it, on global trade.
06:01 Are you in favor of such a levy on maritime transport?
06:05 Well, I think it's better for the International Maritime Organization.
06:10 We actually have another organization that looks at these issues and for the shipping companies themselves.
06:16 I think that having more direct,
06:21 transparent levies is
06:24 actually better than anything indirect.
06:26 So to that extent, if we are going to have a levy, something simple,
06:31 direct may not be such a bad thing. The whole idea is to tax fossil fuels, to make it
06:38 more expensive to use fossil fuels. I'm in favor of carbon pricing.
06:43 Being an economist, I think this is one way we can both tax fossil, but also raise
06:49 resources, which can then be channeled to developing countries to help them have a just transition.
06:55 So if those monies are levied in a transparent, direct way and they are channeled to help developing countries
07:03 be able to transit, then that helps with the just transition and climate finance.
07:09 Thank you. I have to leave it there, I'm afraid. Thank you so much indeed, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
07:14 the Director General of the World Trade Organization,
07:18 here at the summit on a new global financing pact in Paris.
07:24 That was France 21st, Catherine Norris-Trent reporting.